Passive Breathing: Get Out of Your Own Way
One of the first things you’ll talk about with any voice teacher is breathing. You might have heard that breath support is the basis of all vocal technique, and we don’t disagree! The key to safe and beautiful singing is making sure your breath is doing the heavy lifting. Once you master the art of breathing, the rest becomes infinitely easier. Of course, you may be wondering what the “art” of breathing is. Don’t we all know how to breath? How could someone possibly breathe wrong?
Breathing Basics
Part of the challenge of developing good breath technique is that we do know how to breath; so well, in fact, that our bodies do it autonomously. You might be able to hold your breath until you pass out, but your body will begin breathing again as soon as you’re unconscious and unable to make terrible decisions like not breathing for extended periods. Your diaphragm is the large muscle beneath your lungs that powers your breathing and you can neither feel nor consciously control it. It’s controlled by your autonomic nervous system, the part of your brain that takes care of things like keeping your heart beating without you having to think about it.
“But,” you might be thinking, “I can choose to take a deep breath; I can choose to hold my breath. If I can’t control my diaphragm, how can I do that?”
The answer is that you’re not controlling your diaphragm, you’re controlling the muscles around it to slow down or speed up how quickly it moves - and this is also how you might be breathing wrong and the other challenge to developing strong breath support. There are a lot of muscle groups in your torso, many of which are used to consciously control your breathing, but not all of them are very good at it.
Take a moment to stand in front of a mirror and take an intentional deep breath. Observe what parts of your body move. Did your shoulders rise? If they did, you’re using some of those ineffective muscle groups in an attempt control your diaphragm.
Passive Breathing: Getting out of your own way
The technique we’re about to discuss is called passive breathing.
At its most basic level, it’s getting out of your own way so that your lungs can work to their fullest capacity and it’s the key to getting full breaths for good singing. The breathing we do when singing is a combination of active and passive breathing, but understanding how to breath passively will vastly improve your active breathing.
Breath out gently but fully until your belly is concave and you feel completely empty of air. You shouldn’t force or push the air out. We suggest hissing like a snake while exhaling to both regulate your exhalation and give you an audible indication that you’re completely out of air. Now relax, open your mouth, drop your jaw and allow the air to flow in naturally. You should notice your belly expanding as you inhale and the breath should be nearly silent. Take note of how this feels in your body, particularly compared to that intentional deep breath you took earlier. Two of the biggest obstacles to good singing are insufficient breath support and tension in the neck, throat, and jaw. This technique helps bust both of those in on fell swoop!
Next Steps
So how do you apply this to your singing? First, it’s a great way to get that first full breath before you start singing. Make sure to leave yourself time to do this; use the half a measure before your first note to passively inhale. You’ll start the song with a great lungful of air waiting to do that hard work of singing.
The second benefit of practicing passive breathing is a less direct application. By paying attention to what parts of your body are moving during passive breathing, you can learn which muscle groups to engage while actively breathing. During the passive breathing exercise, you hopefully noticed your belly moving in and out. You can apply this to your active breathing. When consciously taking those quick breaths between phrases, focus on keeping your shoulders down; there’s no lung tissue in your shoulders and raising them only makes it more difficult for your lungs to expand. Instead, focus on expanding your belly, ribs, and even your back, making room for your diaphragm to do it’s job and your lungs to quickly fill with air.
You can build on this knowledge even more by developing increased control of these muscles groups. While passive breathing focuses on the inhale (also - rather poetically - called inspiration), those same muscle groups that you might focus on to take a full breath can be held still or even expanded further will singing to make your breath last longer and be more impactful.
There’s a lot to learn from passive breathing, but remember to always pace yourself with any breathing exercise. Spending extended periods of time working exclusively on breathing can lead to hyperventilation or light-headedness, both of which could be particularly risky if you’re practicing on your own. We suggest treating breathing exercises as interval training; do multiple short sessions with time to recover or a different exercise that works another muscle group in between.
Book a lesson and Learn Passive Breathing With a Pro
Spend some time practicing passive breathing (but not too much time!) and let us know what your takeaways are. Did it change the way you breathe while singing? If you want to take your breath support to the next level, reach out and schedule a lesson with Zelda today! We hope this gives you one more way to love your voice!
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